


Wash Your Hair

by bladesummonerv



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Driving, J. Jonah Jameson Infowars, M/M, McDonald's, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29226723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bladesummonerv/pseuds/bladesummonerv
Summary: Bucky won't eat anything besides Sausage Egg McMuffins while he's on the run.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Wash Your Hair

**Author's Note:**

> Suicide themes/jokes, Qanon jokes, Guns, implied vomitting, snakes.  
> 

They found him. Bucky. Chicago. Between Chicago and Indianapolis I suppose. Not just standing around in the parking lot of Wrigley Field. They had to go all the way to Chicago. What the hell was he doing in Chicago. "What the hell were you doing in Chicago?" Steve eventually asked him. He just grinned like it was a secret, but the tail end of it was shy. He'd been quiet. There may or may not have been much room for him to talk because Steve had been blathering and bluthering about getting him back. "Bu--" Steve said.  
"Oh. Mmh, I dunno. If you're not in New York, you're in... if you're not in New York, you're in Chicago." Bucky said, and Steve and Sam grinned in turn. Steve hugged him.

They kept driving. Stopping for fast food, they wandered around the parking lot and Steve stretched his legs. Bucky watched him like he was doing the chicken dance at a diplomatic speech.  
"Are you okay?" Steve said.  
"Yeah." Bucky scowled. "Where are we going?"  
"Well. We're sort of on the, uh, well. Where do you want to go?"  
"I wanna drive."  
"I don't think that's a good idea, Buck." Steve said.  
"What does he want!" Natasha hollered out of the store.  
Bucky shrugged.  
"French fries?" Steve said.  
Bucky frowned.  
"Well, that do you want?" Steve tried to get something out of him. Probably he didn't want anything from a fast food place, huh? For his first meal back? "Get a big water and a soda!" And he started walking across the parking lot with Bucky.  
"Water and what!"  
"Coca Cola!" Great to be on the run and screaming and stretching in a parking lot.  
Bucky loved the Coca Cola. Also, he had stolen the keys, so Steve convinced them to let him drive and convinced Bucky to eat a french fry.  
"Go 'head and go back south." Steve said when a sign giving them directions cropped up.  
Bucky drove and commanded silence. Well, Sam and Natasha were talking, but Steve couldn't focus on them enough to get in the loop. He surfed through the radio--it was different by now, there weren't so many New York stations. There were lots of talk-shows. It's just that it wasn't J. J. Jameson on the talk shows. After enough of hearing different fuzzy noises, Bucky smacked Steve's hand. Which startled him.  
"Sorry." They both said. "It's okay." Steve said.  
"I only like longer ones. The shorter ones are just fluff." Sam had been saying. "I think they're funny." Natasha'd said. "What?" They both said. They hadn't had their eyes glued to the display on the dash, or they might have seen it. I mean it wasn't at actual smack, it was more like a swat. Bucky'd lost his willingness to even touch Steve halfway through.  
"Nothing."  
"Thanks. It's just loud."  
Sam and Natasha went back to chatting, and Steve watched Bucky's face and shoulder as he drove, and then looked at the mountains.  
"Where we going?" Sam said when Bucky moved back out of the fast-lane into the right lane.  
"Make the trucks jealous." Bucky said, but actually he was pulling off to the side of the road.  
"Are you okay?" Steve said when Bucky got back in the car. He handed Bucky the water to rinse his mouth out.  
"Yeah, I'm fine." Bucky mumbled.  
"Break time. Switch around."  
"I can drive. I'm fine now." Bucky complained.  
"You'll get tired eyes."  
Bucky sighed and he and Steve went to the backseat. Minutes later Natasha was navigating a widening highway with turn pikes and meters.  
"Just watch the horizon, right?" Steve suggested to Bucky.

"Nah." Bucky corrected, eyes fixed out there anyway.

They pulled off at a hotel before sunset, and got two rooms. Steve and Bucky quickly combed the room and of course it was clean.  
"Want to shower?" Steve said.  
"Fine." Bucky said unhappily.  
"Bath?"  
Bucky didn't say anything.  
"You'll feel better. Come on, you d--uh." Steve plugged the tub--lucky, some of these motels, they just had a shower--and ran a bath for him. "You can use all the shampoo if you want. I don't know about your hair." Steve put a towel and wash cloth on the side of the tub and pulled the door shut.  
He went through his cloths to find something to give Bucky to replace his sweatshirt and creased slacks. None of them had asked about all of that. But if you ask Steve solely about the look, he would say that he has seen rich guys wandering around wearing that, which means it MUST be classy and on fleek. How he obtained it, was probably not classy.  
"Bucky... I have pajamas for you." It was black sweats and a light gray sweatshirt with no hood.  
Bucky snuck the door open--Steve saw his blue eyes--and took them, and then came out dressed with his hair fluffy but still wet. "Do you want a hairdryer? We could barrow one from Natasha."  
"No." Bucky said, about to start a fight.  
"Oh, okay. Anyways, who gets first watch?"  
"Me. What are you watching?"  
"Uouh, SHIELD."  
"Hm. Me." Bucky sat on the edge of his bed.  
Steve had an alarm that wasn't also a GPS wiretap, and that's how he woke up. (In the morning.)  
"Bucky! I meant I would take second watch and let you sleep."  
"Well I didn't want to."  
"You can trust me. You can trust us."  
"Okay. I'm hungry."  
"Yeah, okay! What do you want?"  
"McDonald's egg thingie without the egg and cheese."  
Steve was grinning because yeah they could work with that! "McDonald's egg thingie, hold the egg."  
Bucky nodded and fidgetted.  
"Do you want blue jeans?" Steve said, and Bucky stared at his boxers.  
"Nuh."  
"I have a belt." Is it rude to even imply that Bucky is as skinny as he is?  
Bucky smiled. "Give me that. Why do you have a belt?" And he folded it up.  
"Suspenders are better on me, is that what you're thinking?"  
"Sure."  
"Coffee, or soda?"  
"Coffee."  
"Um. I don't have--that sweatshirt is the cleanest thing I have right now." Steve said, and then dug for cloths for himself. Next stop would have to include time to load a washing machine. Some motels had them. Some truck stops.  
"Fine." Bucky said, digging in his backpack.  
"You ready?" Steve said.  
"Yes."  
They went out, and Sam was at the balcony. "Morning."  
"Hey, good morning." Steve grinned.  
"Having a good morning?"  
"Of course." Steve stopped himself from touching Bucky's arm. "How'd you sleep?"  
"Fine." Sam said.  
"Same here." Steve said, and Sam grinned and nodded, so Steve punched him. "Bucky didn't, I don't think." Does that count as changing the subject?  
"Oh, aw."  
Bucky shrugged.  
Natasha came out soon, and gave them a lazy smile and just walked past them. They couldn't even stand around on a balcony. It drove Steve's heart insane even though he really shouldn't be. Bucky followed her. Steve and Sam bumbled along.  
Sam got the first driving shift. They sat parked a stupid distance away from the McDonalds in a huge parking lot with a Home Goods AND a Ross. But, if they parked near McDonald's people might guess that's where they were.  
"I'm not going to hang myself." Steve blurted.  
"Me either." Bucky replied.  
"Uh." Sam said. "Hmm."  
"Give me the belt." Steve demanded.  
Bucky said that it was in his backpack, with food in his mouth.  
"I was gonna give him nicer pants." Steve explained to Sam and Nat. "And I had that belt to give to him in case they didn't fit."  
"They don't, but, I figured." Bucky fidgeted with the waistband of his sweats.  
"Oh." Sam said.  
"Mm-hm." Natasha said.  
"It was a joke." Bucky said.  
"I mean." Steve said. I mean it better be. "It better be!!!"  
"How's your arm?" Sam said.  
"Horrible. It's not clean. It's all gunked up." Bucky said, and got it to whir pretty good.  
"Oh. That sucks." And the three of them looked at each other, because, you know, Tony. "How's your shoulder?"  
Bucky shrugged. That probably answered the question pretty definitively.

Steve showered before Bucky, and then they sat around with the TV on. The lights were such a warm amber that the night showing through the crack in the window was foreign. "Want a comb?" Steve said when Bucky came out.  
"Thanks." Bucky took it. It wasn't as good as a brush would have been, probably, but Bucky's hair was starting to look nicer now. "The coffee was bad."  
"Oh, I'm sorry."  
"What's the point of it?"  
"You used to like it. Some people do and some don't. Do I get first watch tonight?"  
"Fine."

"Hmmm. Hmm."  
"Bucky, whacha doing?"  
Bucky rolled out from underneath the car. "What."  
"What." Steve insisted.  
"I'm just checking it."  
"Well, for what? It's driving perfectly fine, remember?" Steve said, but Bucky was staring at the asphalt. "Come on," And gave him a hand up, and they stared at each other for a moment. "Come on." Steve led him back to the cab. Natasha was getting them a quick breakfast from the continental, la de da, to eat on their way east. 

"Do you guys think the truck wheel steering is funny?"  
"Motorcycle jokes." Sam said. "Sorry, I'm tired. I think it's fine. It's kind of nice to drive, you're so tall."  
"I hadn't noticed." Bucky said wistfully.  
Steve glanced at Sam, who was trying to figure out what Bucky was thinking.  
"Hey, so." Steve said, and they looked at him. "Hey, so, I have--I put away some money for cloths."  
"Oh. I was gonna be funny. Sorry." Bucky pulled the wad of money out of his shirt.  
"Oh." Steve took it back.  
"Yeah." Sam said, boldly breaking the silence. "That sounds alright." 

"You're stupid, you're naive... You're stupid for leaving! S--hopeless." Bucky said in the backseat with Steve. "Fucking car." And punched his thigh.  
"Bucky."  
"You want to share with the class?" Sam said.  
"Buck, we didn't--it's complicated." Steve said.  
"Oh, oh. Oh." Bucky said, like they were doing the opposite of leaving.  
"No! We're not Hydra. Bucky, we're NOT Hydra. We're not going to hurt you."  
"We are hiding from them. So." Sam said.  
"Mmh."  
"And stupid for it, apparently." Natasha said.  
"Sorry. Fuck."  
"No, Buck, you been out here too, you've been alone and you made it. So you know something. We're gonna..."  
"No I don't. I don't." Bucky said.  
"You know we didn't--we weren't--we didn't escape the same way you did. We weren't IN Hydra, we... Hydra was infiltrating us."  
"Okay, whatever. I get it. I don't like them either."  
"I'm not--"  
"Why'd I get sent to kill you, then?"  
"We're both too good at fighting. Is probably why they sent you to kill me. The reason they had me getting killed by you is I'm trying to stop them! To stop them."  
"You're not good at fighting." Bucky said, and Steve laughed.  
"I am when it's not you." Steve promised.  
A little while later, they parked and stretched. "Pizza Hut Taco Bell Wings Street." Steve asked Bucky.  
"Hmm, what?" Bucky said. "I just want the crusts."  
"Are you sure?"  
Bucky sighed. "I don't know."  
"What are you hungry for?"  
"I don't know. Just the bread. I don't--I can't--"  
"Okay, relax, bread, that's fine. It's okay."  
Steve got him some garlic knots, since we're pretty sure those are made out of the crusts.  
"What's it matter if you weren't Hydra." Bucky muttered in their room.  
"Bucky. It matters because it's true."  
"Why are you smarter than me? Huh? So much better than me?"  
"I'm--Bucky, I'm not."  
"Am I smarter than you?"  
"I don't know, Bucky." Steve knew that Bucky wasn't kidding, but it still felt like Steve could get him to break character and laugh and call him a stupid asshole. And then either one of them could sit down and bring it up without it being an argument. But, if this was Steve's Bucky, he would never have felt this way to begin with.  
"No, tell me. Tell me." Bucky stood up like he wanted to fight.  
"Then fight." Steve blurted. WAIT... NOT in the hotel room. "I'm not."  
"Stupid. I don't remember anything. Obviously you're smarter than me. Stupid liar."  
"I wasn't thinking about that."  
"Stupid."  
"Alright, Bucky."  
"Oh whatever. Yeah, let me call you stupid all day and night. Just sit there."  
"Fine."  
"Go shower." Bucky said.  
"Yeah, that's a good idea." Steve said slowly, and left him alone, and left himself alone under the water. He tried not to dwell on it. They were already getting a routine--sort of--and that's good for people, right? Even a little, short-lived (PLEASE) routine that gets interrupted for a bigger, longer, steadier one after things get better.  
Steve channel surfed, and watched a cooking show. Bucky came out and sat next to him on the bed, shifting around.  
"I can't help it. I'm sorry." Bucky said, and then got mad again. "We're just stuck together like this in these rooms. And."  
"It's alright. It's hard. We're not at home."  
"What."  
"Just somewhere in New York, I hope. Or with me. But not stuck together, just together for dinner and breakfast."  
"I can't help it." Bucky said quietly.  
"It's okay to be frustrated. It's okay. You just need to get your mind off it. I have a deck of cards."  
"I'm not frustrated. I can't stop thinking. I'm thinking too much. Too much."  
"It's okay. It's gonna be okay. It's just growing pains. You probably just need to--to hold your way through it. You won't have to... You won't have to keep doing it over and over. If..."  
"Okay. But what's gonna happen?"  
"Well, what's happening with it right now."  
"I don't know. I don't like it. I'm sorry."  
"You're not doing anything."  
"I've been so bad all day!"  
"Shh. You haven't. You haven't. You've been talking today."  
Bucky looked at him.  
"Yeah." Steve encourged. "Can I touch your back?"  
"Yeah." Bucky sighed, uncurling a little. Steve just rubbed his back, careful of his shoulders.  
"Breathe, breathe. Big and soft and slow." Steve reminded him, when he caught him shaking a little.  
"Mm-hmm."  
"Is this okay?"  
"Yeah."  
It was stupid of Steve to let him fall asleep, because, well, he woke up at night and was, well, hard to deal with.  
Steve sat with him, when he came back to himself and was just Bucky or somebody. He let Steve hold his hands. "I don't want to hurt you." Steve promised.  
"Oh. I guess that's pretty in line with how you've been acting."  
"Do you want some water?"  
"I'm sorry." Bucky's voice was loose.  
"Shh, it's okay."  
"No it's not."  
"It will be."  
"No. Steve--"  
"Don't get up. Where are you going."  
"Shut up. I could go somewhere."  
"I wish you wouldn't."  
Bucky was pretty mad. But, he looked different from how he just had. It was Bucky, it was just that he was mad.  
"It's okay. It's okay to be mad."  
"I'm not mad."  
"I know you were scared. You can be mad, now, if you want."  
"That's not what I want! I don't want this."  
"Shh."  
"Oh, I can be mad, but I can't make any noise."  
"Yeah. Okay, maybe you can't be mad right now. We're making good time, though."  
"Not right now."  
"Not right now." Steve admitted. They could do shifts of night driving. But that was dangerous. "Lay down."  
"I'll take second watch. What time is it." Bucky said defensively.  
"A little past 1."  
Bucky sighed.  
"Hey, I'll finish my watch."  
"And then you can wake me up. That's so efficient." Bucky said, and even though his voice was still a little harsh, he made a gesture like he wanted Steve in his lap. Steve looked at him, feeling awkward for how quickly he'd projected on him. "Nevermind. I'm stupid." Bucky said, of Steve rebuffing him.  
"Oh. No." Steve squirmed closer, and Bucky moved his arm and then wrapped it around him, and he was against Bucky's chest.  
"Sorry, I just. Sorry." Bucky said.  
"No, this is nice. It's good."  
"Stupid."  
"Mm-hmm, I can't help it. Don't let me forget where I put your gun."  
"No, I'm gonna leave my gun at this motel. That's what's gonna happen to us."

"Can I drive." Bucky said.  
"Fine, after breakfast."  
"Not hungry." Bucky said when they parked, and started circling the car.  
"Are you, uh, checking the brakes or something?" Sam said.  
"Oh. Buck..." Steve said, and then realized maybe someone had screwed around with their car, I mean who knows. Probably no one, probably not. Steve got in the driver's seat and popped the hood.  
"Oh boy." Natasha said. "Actually, put that down, someone's gonna have an excuse to come and help us."  
"Like in The Office." Steve had recently seen the Office.  
"If the entire government was infiltrated, SHIELD only got to be an agency BECAUSE it was... useless." Steve posited, walking up with Natasha to carry breakfast back while Bucky and Sam kicked the tires. They probably weren't actually doing that.  
"You've been reading too many posts and not enough articles."  
"Oh. Well did you hear Q from Qanon is a government psyop?"  
"Of course he's just the government, he's always just been the government. That's the point."  
"Oh." Steve opened the door for them.  
"Q from Qanon. Steve"  
"Q from Men in Black."  
"Yeah, good," Natasha let Steve change the subject. "I didn't see it."  
"I saw the 3rd one."  
"Oh Steve." Her brow creased. Sam and Bucky were watching the sky contemplatively at either-side door when they got back to the car with breakfast.

The road narrowed and bottle necked at one point, and filled out with road work signs, AND it began to rain so hard with such big drops that Steve felt like he was definitely absolutely going run someone over or get rear-ended and pushed up the hill and back down it. He certainly couldn't pull over or turn around.

"Do you still have Steve's belt?" Sam said.  
"Well, I got the new backpack when we went shopping."  
"Where did you put the old one...?" Steve asked.  
"I just dumped it, but I put a condom wrapper, because then it's like, where'd this guy's pants GO?"  
"What are you talking about?" Sam laughed.  
"Yeah." Bucky said.  
They accidently started arguing, and Steve accidentally threw Bucky's dirty dirty laundry under the bus. "I have to practically waterboard you to get you to brush your teeth."  
"They just get dirty again! Fuck." Bucky said, like it was sincerely just about entropy to him, and Sam laughed.  


"Oh yeah, did you remember anything?" Sam said.  
"Not really. Um. We were all in our house, I was looking at these shoes, and I was in the kitchen, then m--my mom was--was--fuck--with my sis--I can think about it." Bucky said. He could think about it, but he couldn't talk about it with crying. But he could think about it.  
"Thank God. That's probably from when you were a kid. You're getting your kid memories back."  
"Yeah, that's good."  
"Yeah, I was little." Bucky said. "You guys are being stupid."  
"Maybe." Sam said, and Steve looked at him. "You're kind of a special case, though, man."  
"I don't really want to be." Bucky said, almost like he loved getting attention but was being too indulgent just now to be properly modest.  
"Aw, you two are such martyrs." Sam said.  
"Sam." Steve complained, also not selling it.

They were all in one room tonight, which was lucky.  
"Do you want to give me your gun just for safe keeping tonight." Steve said nicely before Bucky could shower and change, and Bucky handed it over carefully.  
"Steve." Sam said.  
"Well." Steve said, meaning to say something else along with it. He came back to the left bed once he'd put the gun in the dresser.  
"I'm with her on this, give me it back. I'm not gonna do it again." Bucky said, like it was obvious.  
"Steve." Natasha said.  
"So, maybe he's a litt--" Steve said.  
"I am not anything."  
" _Don't yell._ " Steve said.  
"I'm gonna shower." So Bucky went.  
"So." Natasha said.  
"It's not loaded."  
"Not funny, man. Did he? Try to shoot you?" Sam said.  
"He was just trying to scare me." Steve layed backwards.  
"And it worked."  
"So, I took the gun. He's trying to figure out where he is."  
"Yeah, I guess so." Sam sighed.  
"He has improvements to make. I can't tell how much sleep he gets. The easy ones. Eating. Not driving all day."  
"Yeah, sleeping is easy, sure." Sam said.  
Natasha laughed and Steve sighed.  
"How much sleep have you been getting."  
"I've been fine. What about you?"  
"Oh, we've been doing just fine." Natasha smiled. "Yeah, I'm fine. I think we're a good team when we're all playing nice. I like him." Sam said. "I like him less now."  
"Aw."  
"What are you gonna do?" Sam said, looking at the TV.  
"I don't know."  
Bucky came out, and Steve and Sam glanced at each other, so Sam went to shower third.  
"Hey." Steve said to Bucky.  
"Hey."  
"What do you want to do."  
"I had fun getting us dinner tonight." Bucky got to wait in line and order. "I want... to care about movies. I think we should just drive all the way tonight, come on."  
"No." Steve and Natasha said together.  
"It's only 10. In two hours, the roads will be empty." Bucky said.  
"And then in two more hours, we'll be checking in the last place at 2am. Do you want to be that person? People remember things when their emotionally aroused, and I'd get pretty aroused to have to be nice to people at 2. Like, our faces, who we are." Steve said.  
"Yeah, uh-huh." Bucky said. "Shut up. I mean mad. Annoyed." Steve said when Natasha smiled to herself. "Curious. Anyways, so what if it's 2 A.M., we'll just switch drivers. I like it at night when it's just you and and then two more hours after that, and we can watch the sunset."  
"Two more hours to hit work traffic."  
"We'll be there at 4, stupid."  
Steve sighed.  
"Do you think we're the only people trying to get to New York early to go to work?" Natasha said, and Steve didn't laugh or make any noise.  
"We can just tighten the suspension on the truck and drive over them. I've done that"  
"Oh, we didn't think of that, maybe we should hear him out, Steve." "Do you remember anything else?"  
Bucky folded his hands against his knee and sighed. "Bike snake grass."  
"What?"  
"Something about a snake in the grass and I think there never was a snake at all. We had my bike."  
"Oh yeah, and Becca almost got bit because the bike treads in the grass looked like snake-treads! I remember that. You used to like that story."  
"Story."  
"Yeah, you told me it Buck. When it happened."  
"Okay."  
"I think it's a good story."  
"But I don't remember if there was a snake. It just sounds like a joke."  
"It's a good story." Steve said.  
"But wouldn't I remember if there was a snake." Bucky asked, voice flat.  
"I dunno. Maybe it is a story. That Becca told you after she chased you out of the grass. That's still a real--maybe you thought you saw a snake, but you really did think that, and then made a memory about it. That you're now unlo--getting back."  
"Hmph."  
"If you have a scary memory, you can tell me."  
"No."  
Sam came out with Buckaneers pajama pants that made Steve raise an eyebrow. "What." Sam said.  
"Nothing." Steve went to shower. He was pretty quick too.  
"Myself is terrible. I don't want to be me."  
"Then don't be. Be someone else."  
Steve had meant to glare at himself in the mirror, but he could hear Bucky and Natasha and didn't want to eavesdrop.  
"Hey good looking." Sam said.  
"Gee thanks." Steve said.

"I did." Sam was on the phone in the morning, and New York awaited them. "I just did. Do you have your tablet? No, don't leave that screen. That's not what it's called anymore. It's just on your tablet. Okay, so now type Godzilla. No. Have fun mom. Now check your email. In the red one. So, do you see a square with little black and white--Okay, sorry, yeah, you know what a QR code is, sorry. So, you're gonna show it to the ticket taker. Okay. I don't think so. They probably will!"


End file.
